Tiny Zines

This website explains how to make tiny zines from a sheet of A4 paper. If you live in America, you can use 8 12" x 11" paper. Yes, they're meant to be really small. This is a good project if you have a hard time finishing things. There are downloadable resources if you'd like to run this activity at a library, makerspace, or other venue. It's a great choice for people who feel unheard and want to share their lived experience, which is highly useful at this time in history. Check out the POC Zine Project for inspiration.

Some other fun resources:

"Hand-Stitching Zines"

"What's a zine? And why?"

Zine links by tozka

Zines on the Internet Archive

Read "Dalia Ravenstone and the Vicious Circle"

fayanora has posted the novel "Dalia Ravenstone and the Vicious Circle" which you can read for free. It is available here in multiple formats. The Goodreads page is here.

The Ravenstone Family series: It's a little like the Addams Family, a little like Harry Potter (without the bigotry) or The Worst Witch, a little like the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire, and a little like none of those things. It features an ethnically and neurologically diverse cast; the protagonist of the first book, Dalia Ravenstone, is a black, autistic, transgender goth girl with chronic anxiety, chronic depression, and a missing foot (by birth). Dalia's best friends are a Korean-American boy with ADHD who uses a wheelchair, a white ginger girl who likes both girly things and tinkering with machines, a kitsune living in poverty, a Goblin foreign exchange student, and a laptop computer that acts like it’s sentient.

If you are tired of Whitey McFantasy, this is something completely different.

Poem: The Daughters of Entropy haiku collection

This haiku collection is spillover from the March 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from scrubjayspeaks. It also fills the "Wisdom" square in my 3-1-25 card for the Tolkien Bingo Fest. This collection has been sponsored by Anthony Barrette.

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American Prairie

Recently we talked about the butterfly apocalypse and the importance of restoring habitat. Some folks felt that small patches wouldn't be enough, which is partly true. So if you want to support really big wildlife refuges, here's one to consider. American Prairie is a large and growing nature reserve in Montana that functions by purchasing former ranchland and restoring it to a wild state.  I'm amused because it reminds me of tribal reservations in Terramagne growing by acquiring adjacent lands.  Here people are aiming to recreate the American Serengeti ... or as much as humans have left after wiping out the American cheetah and most of the other megafauna. So far they're working with pronghorns and buffalo.

Watch on YouTube

Magpie Monday

dialecticdreamer is hosting Magpie Monday with a theme of "Now what?"

I picked up someone else’s coffee by accident and took a sip. Now what? Jules contacted his “backup resource” when the reservation snafu shook him. Now what? (That question will be answered tomorrow, rest assured!) Wayne is facing his college graduation ceremony. Now what? And so on.

Sometimes, the simplest things can leave someone flat-footed, with no idea how to proceed.

Be as serious, specific, sarcastic, or silly as you, the reader, want to read.

This is a plot-focused prompt call, so please keep in mind “problems that can’t be solved by hitting.” Let’s use Jules’ situation as an example: hitting the annoying clerk wouldn’t solve the problem of getting his money back, and the ‘where to sleep’ issue would become ‘county jail,’ at a bare minimum. That’s not a great solution. So, if the setup includes violence, I’ll mention it indirectly, and include a warning of “implied or discussed violence, off-stage.” Then I’ll write merrily along, because there’s just TOO LITTLE of this kind of storytelling in mainstream media.

Birdfeeding

Today is sunny and warm. It's 71°F outside.

I fed the birds. I've seen a small flock of sparrows and a starling. I heard the titmouse when I went outside but didn't see it.

I put out water for the birds. The honeybees have rediscovered the tall birdbath. :D

Lots of crocuses are blooming, including the first white one, which is larger than the snow crocuses.

My order has arrived from One Green World.

EDIT 3/11/25 -- We started putting together the new RYOBI Speed Bench Mobile Workstation. It is a right proper pain in the ass. >_< The part bags and assembly steps don't match. The instructions are unclear. The parts don't all fit together easily.

I've seen several house finches and a pair of cardinals.

EDIT 3/11/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a mourning dove, and the titmouse shrieked at me from the forest garden when I went outside, fluttering around and trying to drive me away from the food source. I am approximately 2000 times his size and he so doesn't care. LOL

One of the honeybees drowned in the tall birdbath. Well, there goes $20 to the ants. :( So I had to go find a rock to put in the middle in case they need to climb out. What I really need to do is make a proper bee watering dish, and then teach them to use that instead of A) things that might kill them or B) my plants that I want to water without a territorial argument.

EDIT 3/11/25 -- We finished assembling the workbench. \o/ Some of the leftover cardboard is suitable for use as seed-starting pots. We filled the whole garden cart with the rest of it. I love that cart. I also love the utility knife -- its blade has 2 extension lengths and locks into place very conveniently. I happened to be wearing actual work pants, and it is super useful to have lots of pockets and D-rings to hang tools from. :D

The temperature was up to 77°F last I checked. So wrong for March.

EDIT 3/11/25 -- I saw a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.


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Affordable Housing

Three millennials bought an abandoned high school for $100K and converted it into 31-unit housing

Of the 31 units, 27 of them are one-bedroom apartments and four are two-bedrooms.


Schools, like hotels, tend to be pretty well set to become affordable housing.  If you keep the function space, then you can include amenities like the gym and auditorium here, or a library, a cafeteria, etc.  Imagine keeping a cafeteria for folks who can't or don't want to cook.

Something else to consider: older buildings are functionally irreplaceable under current conditions. That makes them priceless, even if they don't seem like much on the surface. Currently, the official lifespan of a commercial building is 39 years, which is about half a human lifespan. But it doesn't even last that long anymore. Somewhere around 10-20 years, the business loses interest and wants to move into a new one. The picture is even worse with residential housing, at only 27.5 years, which is close to a third of a human lifespan.  That's not much building for your buck.

Poem: "The Intrusive Thumb of Male Privilege"

This poem is spillover from the March 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from fuzzyred, readera, see_also_friend, and janetmiles. It also fills the "fight" square in my 3-1-25 card for the Tolkien Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the college arc of the Shiv thread in the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes girls being anxious about safety at college, past educational trauma, minor disrespect of a nontraditional student, sexual harassment, rude language, attempted assault, appropriate use of superpowers in a fight, minor bloodshed, ignominious retreat, plans for graffiti, talking about sexual harassment, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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